contents of a human heart may include:
shifting shadows
wasted space
loose change
mumbled promises
secret hopes
tears - and
sometimes blood

m.f.

i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember when we talked about going to seattle?
you said you liked the rain
and the fact that no one there would know you,
i just wanted to be wherever you were.
i was never afraid of the dark
when you talked about yours.
i still don't have words for what i felt
when you told me the only other number
you had saved in your phone apart from your mother's was mine.
i keep telling myself you're not allowed
to just exit and re-enter my life as you please,
but i leave the door unlocked,
so what does that make me?
the last "i love you" from the last time we spoke,
is still stuck to the roof of my mouth.
other lovers have tried to pry it out of me,
but the memory of you is like lockjaw.
i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember the lizard you caught last summer?
you let me name him forrest.
if life is a box of chocolates,
there are pieces missing,
and whatever is left has gone stale.
i can't smoke cigarettes in my backyard anymore
without wondering where you are
or if you're smoking too.
i hope you're not drinking,
i know you hate what it does to you.
your secrets are still tucked between my ribs,
i will hold them safe and repeat them back to you
if you ever lose your way home.
i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember when you told me
about the person you were afraid of becoming,
i said i wasn't scared,
and i told you i was proud of you?
i'm still proud of you.
i hope you're in school or at least keeping busy.
i hope you still make yourself laugh.
i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember what movie we were watching
the night you got arrested?
i still can't finish it.
i am holding the place.
can we pick up where we left off?
can we stand up and wipe the dust off?
i never got to tell you why i only write in pen,
or why i can't sleep with socks on,
or about the day i caught god with his hands in a public fountain
fishing for change.
i'm not mad at you for disappearing, but i'm lonely.
the only reason i haven't called
is because i'm afraid of being sent straight to voicemail,
but if i ever find myself in indiana again,
you'll be the first to know.

- m.f.

this is an open letter to anyone who has the audacity to try and love you like i did.

dear whateverthefuckyournameis,

i apologize in advance for spilling my boiled blood on the hem of your skirt. what you need to understand, is that you are standing on ground previously reserved for my feet, so forgive me for any bitterness that seeps through the cracks in my clenched fists. i don't hate you, but i can't be your friend. you probably don't know about me, and if you do, let me commend your bravery. i have a tendency to set my problems on fire, and in my bouts of anger everything looks flammable, especially girls with paper complexions. i'm sorry. i have never been one to walk away, so i don't know how to explain to you the holes in the bottoms of my shoes. but i have been further than you will ever go. this is not supposed to be an angry letter, but lately that's the only thing coming out of me. i don't even know your name but the thought of your hands reaching for him makes we want to break them. i will douse your dreams in gasoline and strike the match against your cheek. but i know that's not right, see, the poison crawling out from the end of my pen belongs to a scarier version of myself i try not to know. my heartache is an insatiable war cry in the dead of night, that will stop at nothing to shatter all your windows. it shames me to admit that i've found a sort of twisted satisfaction in using passive aggression to breach your armor. i am sick with missing a set of arms i was not privileged enough to know. i speak with all the grace of an atom bomb and wonder about the rubble at my feet. you are white picket fence and i am barbed wire. some girls are lions, some are lambs, and i learned to love, teeth bared and snarling. one of the only things that keeps me going is the hope that one day i'll learn how to love something without making it bleed. i may have never been his, but for a time he was mine, so please understand why i taste acid when i think about your mouth on his. again, i am sorry. i know it is not my place to be so full of resentment, but there is a part of me that sincerely hopes it bothers you to know he dreamt of me before you were even a thought. there is a side of me that thrives on the image of the color being drained from your face when you read this. but i am trying to learn how to be softer. this letter is the manifestation of a self-inflicted war that has been raging in my chest since he first told me about you. you will try to be good to him, and you might even succeed. if you ever find yourself singing him to sleep, like i did, don't ask if he wants to hear another song, just keep going until his breathing slows.

- m.f.

sometimes i wonder if god keeps a record
of all the times i have been left,
all the times i have been unable to leave.
i wonder if he thinks to himself,
"when will she learn?"
as if he feels my heartache too.
i picture god with a furrowed brow,
hunched over a typewriter,
beginning me again and again,
a mountain of crumpled paper at his feet.
but somehow -
he always ends up at the same point in the story
where i am all ****** palms
and half-hearted hallelujahs
propped up on bruised knees.
spitting up blood & teeth at his feet screaming,
"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?"
but he doesn't answer.
and i catch myself wondering if the silence
is his way of punishing me for making a deity out of you.
after all, the bible says he is a jealous god.
i could've sworn there was a verse somewhere
that said you weren't allowed to love anyone other than me.
but now that i think about it,
i probably took it out of context.
if i could add a parable to those already existing,
it would be how your chest
felt like church under my head,
and how i thought to myself,
"this is how it would be if he loved me back."
or how you fled my bedroom like a crime scene.
i am still bleeding.
i won't tell you how many times
i cracked my heart in half
trying to be what you wanted.
how my lips on your skin felt judas.
now i am waiting for god to begin me once more,
hoping he'll leave you out of the plot this time
because i don't think i could stand to lose you again.
see, rumor has it he knew you'd leave
and has been trying to make it up to me
since before we'd even met.
my song is one of repentance.
the wood finish from abandoned pews
rotting under my fingernails.
i made sacrifices you didn't ask for.
i have never known
whether my inability to abandon people
is more a strength or a weakness
but so far everyone i've ever loved
has turned into an exit wound,
and myself into a flickering no vacancy sign.

- m.f.

when i was a little girl -
i believed my daddy was the smartest man in the world.
he knew everything. everything.
if i had a question, daddy had an answer, and a good one.
always.

his degree was in biology,
but he preached from a pulpit every sunday.
his friends, colleagues, congregation, all knew him as Pastor Brett.
to me he was just daddy -
and he was the smartest man in the world.

on days when i couldn't understand my own head,
(which were, and still are, very often)
and got frustrated with myself to the point of tears,
he would kiss my cheeks and promise me i wasn't stupid.
and coming from him, the smartest man i knew, that meant the world.

as years passed and i grew, my naivety remained with me,
and so i thought i was too smart to fall into life's traps.
i fell. i fell fast. i fell hard. i fell often. and i shattered.
each time, the smartest man in the world picked up my pieces
and reassured me i was still welcome in his home.

he never loved me any less, much to my bewilderment.
however, as my faults increased in frequency and severity,
he picked up my pieces now with weathered hands and weary eyes.
his smile was weaker, and a deep pain stirred in the chocolate irises behind his wire-rimmed glasses.

my deception morphed into vines that constricted and twisted and choked out the truth.
he poured out his love onto an underserving me, and said that God would still forgive.
but i, daughter of the smartest man in the world, am a fool.
and by my own two hands, i continued to sink.

he leaves me to pick up my own pieces now, not loving me any less,
but too weak, too exasperated, too heartbroken to do it himself as he always had.
he is done. he loves me and i know it. he shows it. but he is done.
my tears bore him. my half-true stories and pitiful excuses move in one ear and out the other.
he is stone-faced, no longer shocked by my confessions so i leave them unspoken.

his kisses, sear my flesh. his love burns because i know i don't deserve a single shred of it.
i wish he hated me. i wish we could fight. that would make things easier, right?
but he won't. he just won't. he loves me so much and i can't stand it.
but he is done. i broke my father, and his heart, for nothing.

he asked me why i do the things i do,
why i don't just stop it. why i keep on hurting him and my mother.
i didn't have an answer. all i had to offer the smartest man in the world,
was a dry mouth and empty hands.

m.f.

something i noticed about myself
is that, for as long as i can remember,
i've always slept on only one side of my bed

i can't help but wonder - maybe it's my subconscious,
leaving room for all the lovers i dream up in my head -
awaiting a second body to occupy the extra space beside me

i sleep on my side, too. often times resembling the shape of a crescent moon.
arms outstretched, reaching to touch imaginary stars, like my nonexistent lover.

and so as the moon, cold, always longing for the safety and cover of the clouds,
the same way i long for holding arms - but instead, alone, in the vastness of the sky.

i don't want to smell alcohol
on your breath when you kiss me,
i want to taste the hours that you waited
and to feel how much you missed me.

i don't want to breathe in smoke
when i bury my face into your chest,
i want to hear your barely-beating heart
and feel it pulsate in the warmth of your flesh.

i don't want to see the moon & stars
swirl like diamonds against the onyx sky,
unless i can do so in the comfort of your arms
and have your fingers interwoven with mine.

i don't even want my morning coffee
unless you're the one that brings it to me,
having learned to make it just the way i like it
and committed my preferences to your memory.

i don't want sunrises or sunsets
if i can't watch them dance upon your skin,
or love you between dove-white sheets
on saturday mornings at half-past ten.

i don't want to see the day i become old & grey
an early grave i would sooner invite,
than to live to greet old age without you
by my side to guide me into eternal night.

- m.f.

torn jeans
dimples
station wagons
shifting eyebrows
eager hands

wry smiles
chapped lips
cheap beer
deep-set eyes
pirated music

hates his birthday
stoplight-kisses
star-gazing in cornfields
****** knuckles
broken minds

lanky limbs
poetry books
scruffy faces
jet-black coffee
calloused hands that still feel soft

adventurer's heart
jumping fences
midnight tokes
always gives you hickeys
always opens your door

worn sneakers
chewed pen caps
late for work
old windbreakers
dirt under his fingernails

omniscient smirks
expensive cologne
good intentions -
but is bad with goodbyes
hates himself for making you cry

broken cigarettes
aviator shades at night
a perpetually furrowed brow
and a laugh that sounds like autumn leaves as they crunch beneath your feet

m.f.

i tried in vain
to capture
your heart
in a mason jar
like lightning bugs
in mid-july

but every time
i got close
to possessing you
away from me
you'd suddenly fly
proving unattainable

- b.

every achy bone inside me a relic
of the former self still inhabiting this shell.
exquisite fossils of the life once lived
my silhouette, housed in rock,
yet the softest part of me rotted out.
the vacancy in my expression
mirrors the hollowed out spaces
between each rib and every "what if"
my lungs carry haunted cries
apparitions you forged in my memory
phantom fingers singed the word
“remember” into my paper skin.
i am still smoldering.
chambers of my heart filled with cobwebs;
every strand of silk an unfulfilled wish.
we are still tangled up.
the spiders have crawled from our throats
but the dust is settling.
your fingers have intertwined
with the segments of my spine,
fists taking root in my chest, cradling a stone heart.
knuckles bent comfortably around each vertebrae,
your hands are cold.
the weight of all my sins is crushing me,
i suppose i should have noticed
when you read the lines in my palm like an obituary.
forgive me.

- m.f. & j.a

i kept my hatches battened but that
didn't stop your love from barreling toward me
like a runaway freight train with faulty breaks.
and god almighty, did we crash.
you came to a screeching halt at my doorstep
and i didn't know what else to do but let you in.
you looked so cold. we did not start with a spark but a full-on fire.
i told myself i wouldn't fall, instead i jumped.
our sinking frames somehow morphed into life preservers,
and we managed to keep each other's heads above the waves.
we had seemingly saved one another.
you tossed your pills, i flushed my razors, and for a while that was enough.
but we learned the hard way that even the deepest love
can only keep the storm clouds in your mind at bay for so long.
eventually our cracks began to show.
missed calls and silent hours built houses of cards
that were blown down by too many miles.
we hardly ever smiled anymore.
my hands were sieves and yours were sand.
i want to break the hands of the clock
that cursed us with this bad timing.
i have mourned all the hours i won't ever have with you.
i have felt the thunder that rumbles in my lungs
when i reminisce about the memories we'll never make.
the moment i realized i would never wake up beside you
an atom bomb went off in the center of my chest.
but the radiation is what's killing me.
the life is being drained from me here in the wake,
in the ache of your absence. but i won't beg.
i will live out the remainder of my days
tormented by wondering if maybe in another world
our love is perfect and neither of us bleed.

- m.f.

i can't remember when i last heard your voice
and i need you to know that i miss you.
but i don't think the words alone are enough.

i miss you.

I MISS YOU LIKE A BLIND MAN'S BULLSEYE.

I MISS YOU THE WAY A POOR MAN MISSES A ROOF OVER HIS HEAD.

I MISS YOU LIKE THE RUMBLING IN HIS UNFED STOMACH.

I MISS YOU LIKE THE COLD ACHY SPACE IN THIS HALF-EMPTY BED.

I MISS YOU LIKE EVERY POEM I ALMOST WROTE BUT FORGOT ABOUT BEFORE I FOUND A PEN TO WRITE IT DOWN.

I MISS YOU LIKE A FORGOTTEN BIRTHDAY.

I MISS YOU THE WAY JANUARY MISSES GREEN.

I MISS YOU LIKE MY FATHER'S BEDTIME STORIES.

I MISS YOU LIKE THE LAST TRAIN HOME.

MY CHEST IS CAVING. MY LUNGS ARE SHRIVELING,
AND WITH MY LAST BREATH I WILL SCREAM
THROUGH SPACE AND TIME - I MISS YOU.

IT'S TRUE, WHAT ALL THOSE POETS SAY ABOUT THE SUN & MOON - THAT THEY ARE GOING TO KEEP CHASING EACH OTHER FOR ETERNITY, THAT THEY WILL NEVER KNOW ONE ANOTHER'S TOUCH. SO I AM SENDING UP VENDING-MACHINE PRAYERS TO A MAY-OR-MAY-NOT-BE-THERE GOD, BEGGING HIM TO CLOSE THE GAP BETWEEN YOUR FINGERS AND THE SPACES BETWEEN MINE.

- m.f.

this is not a poem. this is a plea. this is me begging you to hear me when i tell you that i love you. my voice is weak and shaking like the branches of a willow in the wind. my hands are trembling like tremors under the surface of the earth. my vision is so blurred that i can barely focus my eyes as i type. i can feel the impending collapse of my lungs as they are further crushed by the weight of all my anxieties. my strength is fading, but i'm still screaming for you, only you don't seem to hear me. i'm reaching for you but you won't take hold of my hand. i swear to god i'm trying with everything i have to hold you together, but i'm terrified it's not enough. the very thought of your nonexistence consumes me in a fear i have never known. i have never been good at telling people i need them, but i can tell you how vacant this world would be if you left it. everything would change. you can't come in to my life like you did and then just leave it with no warning. you can't do that to me. you can't tell me that you want to marry me and then try to disappear without so much as a goodbye. you just can't. so i don't mean to make you feel guilty, i just need you to understand. don't you know what it would do to me if you left? how many times are you going to almost-die before you realize i will never be the same if you do?

if you take time to think about it -
water has many different personalities.
it will burn you, unapologetically, if it's boiled
but it can be so cold that it chills you to the bone.
water can flow freely, or be stagnant.
water can be clear, completely transparent -
or clouded & dark, all depending on where you find it.
water is life-giving; it will save you if you're dying of thirst,
but it can also be a poison - if not properly treated, before taking a drink.
it's powerful enough to destroy entire cities,
but gentle enough to bring life to flowers.
water can hold up a ship- but it will still slip through your fingers.

(water - was the color of your eyes,
  and ever since the day you left -
it's all that seems to come from mine.)

elephants stomp with stone-laden feet
back and forth, back and forth,
creating cracks in my already-battered skull,
weakening the very foundations of my sanity.
their trumpeting echoes through cold corridors
flooding my thought capacity to the brim.

a tightrope walker stretches me, thin -
i feel the shifting pressure of her nimble feet
treading the territories of my weathered frame,
back and forth, back and forth,
my skin reddens beneath the incessant crossing
as the sinew within me starts to atrophy.

in my chest cavity there is a ring of fire,
manipulating my lungs and feeble heart to mere ash.
two golden eyes seen beyond the flames,
ready to leap through them - without the
inconvenience of fear weighing down his agile paws,
both capable and likely to tear my veins to shreds.

a grisly strongman has my bones in his grip.
he smiles malevolently, gloating his strength over me,
squeezing the life from my cartilage - awaiting the snap.
i am cognizant of the sound, but i won't flinch.
next, the imminent collapse of my vertebrae -
i feel them crumble to dust. he laughs.

but it is in the pit of my stomach the ringleader sits -
commanding me into subsidence with every crack of his whip.
i want to meet his eyes but he only averts my gaze.
his twisted circus nearly through, the audience begins to dissipate.
i stare through the blurred smoke, desperate for his visage -
when i see on one of his faded lapels, the embroidery spells out your name.

-m.f.

i wonder if the doors in the house you grew up in
started slamming themselves to save your father the trouble.
i wonder if you can remember the last time you prayed,
and if you had trouble unfolding your hands.
i wonder if your mother knows
about the collection of hearts you hide in your closet,
i wonder if she could tell mine apart from the rest.
i wonder if your shoes know the reason why
you keep them by the back door and not your bedside.
and sometimes, i wonder
if you ever think about that night when i told you,
you wouldn't need to drink so much if you had me.
but it seems like we only speak when you've got body on your brain,
whiskey in your glass,
your judgement is overcast,
and you know i'm too weak to ignore you.
i learned how to translate your texts
from drunken mess back into english.
i am fluent in apology, but i don't ask you for them anymore.
this is just how it is.
it's not enough for either of us
but ******* it we are not above settling.
so i will ignore her name on your breath,
and you will ignore the fact that this means something to me.
i always thought the first time i kissed you,
it would be on your mouth.
i just wanted to be something warm for you to sink into,
something that could convince you to stay a second night.
but i sneak you out in the early morning,
and you take a piece of my pride with you when you go.
i am left to nurse the hangover from a wine i've never tasted,
wondering how this is possible.
waiting for the next drunk call,
for the next time i get to pretend we are lovers,
the next time i get to live out the fantasy i am most ashamed of.
it is the one in my head where you want me when you're sober too.

- m.f.

words. offered last-minute from thin-air and handed off heavy-hearted. words. nights spent sleepless and throats filled with sand & secrets and fingernails blackened by scratching away at the excess and unnecessary. words. all they do is **** me off because i can't use them right and i find myself drowning in recycled metaphors and romanticized abstract thoughts that have been regurgitated from a hundred different mouths and audaciously labeled as poetry. but i am not a poet, at least not a good one, in fact i can't stand most of my writing but i still try. because words, are the only way i can get the myriad of ideas inside my head to make some kind of sense but they're hardly worth a dollar so that's probably why i'm always broke. words. i learned to read them at five and i thought that was impressive but nowadays children half that age are already doing that, so i guess i'm not that special. but words, at times my only friend and often my greatest enemy, have the power to reduce crowds of thousands to tears and according to the book on my father's bedside table they once parted a sea. words can change a world. but they can be weapons of unfathomable destruction. it was words, that made me think i was ugly. words i longed to hear but never did drove me to starve for affirmation from the opposite ***. words on magazines told me what i needed to be and told me nobody would want me if i didn't comply. so it was words that made me stop eating, but not for long, because i am lucky enough that my love of food overpowers the hatred i have for my body. words made me tear my skin to shreds in the still of the night because they somehow managed to crawl beneath it without ever having actually entered in through my ears. words can either give life or they can take it. words are sticks and heavy stones and swords and we're taught that they can't break your bones but tell that to the first generation to have anti-bullying laws enacted because of nooses around necks and bullets through brains and blades on wrists all caused by words. so i urge you to craft your words with care and let them be like summer breezes upon the ears you speak them to. let your words be bandaids and hot air balloons instead of daggers and eulogies. speak like honeysuckle not wisteria. words are vines that wrap themselves around and consume whomever they have been said to. people can have memories shockingly resemblant to pachyderms so be aware that your words can live on like ghosts long after you thought they would have died. words are oceans upon which people can either float or sink below, and you are the decider.

- m.f.

ill
    at
        the
             thought
of
   her
        head
                 in
                     the
                          spot
where
           mine
                    ought
                               to
                                   be
but
      is
         not
                 -